Hidden in Brooklyn, A Bit of Black History; Freedmen's Homes Seen as Attraction

By NICHOLE M. CHRISTIAN

Published: October 29, 2001

For 33 years, Joan Maynard has dreamed the same dream, the one where crowds come to see the four little clapboard cottages tucked behind a chain-link fence on a blighted block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

The houses are all that remain of Weeksville, one of the nation's earliest communities of freed slaves. And Ms. Maynard, 73, has spent nearly half of her life tending to the Hunterfly Road Historic Houses, as they are officially known. She imagines them as a flourishing museum, a link to a bygone era and a bridge of opportunity for a neighborhood dominated by the Kingsborough Houses, a public housing project. ''The Weeksville houses were a source of hope to the people who once lived here and they can be hope for the people who live in this community now.''

It is a dream not far from reality these days. Through nearly $10 million in grants, the bulk of them from the Brooklyn borough president's office and from companies like Goldman Sachs, the houses will soon be fully restored and turned into a museum and education center.

Only one building is currently open to the public -- a so-called interpretive center, a place to view some of the early 19th-century artifacts donated and discovered by the society. The few on display and not in boxes -- an old butter churn, a stone ax sharpener and a pair of slave shackles -- are in need of restoration.

''Everyone should know what happened here,'' said Ms. Maynard, executive director emeritus of the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville, the group that owns the buildings at 1698 Bergen Street. ''These houses can't speak for themselves,'' she said recently while strolling the grounds, where sweeping trees and scampering squirrels are subtle reminders of the property's pastoral heritage. ''Their story deserves to be told in a major educational setting. ''

So along with the restoration, scheduled to begin in the spring, the society is also building an education center to introduce neighborhood children to the story of Weeksville using media, art, dance and computer technology.

''Urban renewal basically destroyed places like Weeksville,'' said Jim Hadley, of Wank Adams Slavin Associates, an architectural preservation firm. The firm is handling the restoration, including furnishing the homes with gas lamps, wood-burning stoves, outhouses and a two-story laundry pole in the backyard. ''But just by a stroke of luck we have a chance to now give these houses back to the community as they once existed.''

The story of Weeksville began with James Weeks, a black longshoreman from Virginia, believed to be a former slave, who bought land from the Lefferts family in 1838. His patch of farmland became a bustling place for blacks, partly because slavery in New York was outlawed in 1827, well before the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Scores of African-Americans, many fleeing Manhattan during the draft riots, quickly made their way to the area bounded by Fulton Street on the north, East New York Avenue on the south, Ralph Avenue on the east and Troy Avenue.

In Weeksville, people found virtually everything they needed: schools, thriving churches, social organizations, even an orphanage and a home for the elderly. (Historians believe some of the churches were stops on the Underground Railroad.)

By the 1950's, that legacy was all but buried. Then in 1968, a historian and a pilot surveying Brooklyn, and benefiting from an aerial perspective, saw an odd clump of run-down wooden cottages tucked away on what appeared to be a trace of a road. Through some detective work, they soon realized they had discovered the remains of a lost community. The road itself, called Old Hunterfly Road, had a story: It had been a trade path used by Indians. In 1970, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Hunterfly Road Houses a landmark. Two years later, they were added to the National Register of Historic Places.

But prestige has not eased the struggle to preserve the houses. Over the years, Ms. Maynard's group has pieced together, through corporate gifts and city and neighborhood donations, the money for renovations, including, in the early 1980's, new roofs for all four houses. Still, the sparsely financed project has endured its share of setbacks. One house, destroyed by a fire, had to be completely rebuilt, and a security system was installed to ward off thieves.

Even now that Weeksville appears headed for its biggest boost yet, there is concern.

Last month, the group received the kind of news that would make any preservation project envious. It received a $400,000 grant from Save America's Treasures, a federal group that has helped preserve the homes of Harriet Tubman in upstate New York and Edith Wharton in Massachusetts. On any other day, it would have been a moment to celebrate. But it came on Sept. 11, and like the rest of New York and the nation, the Weeksville Society was grieving for the victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attack.

In the weeks since, the society's excitement has been dampened by news that both Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Gov. George E. Pataki plan to cut billions from the city and state budgets, a move some worry could stymie Weeksville's rebirth. The city owns the land where the new education center is to be built and the state has promised thousands of dollars to the project. City and state officials say it's too soon to tell how arts programs will be affected.

''This is a big moment for us,'' said Pam Green, the executive director of the Weeksville preservation group. ''We finally have the money we need to expand, but given what's happened to the city, it's no longer clear that we'll have the necessary funding to create a level of stable programming.''

Ms. Green said about $5 million more is needed, and the first of a series of fund-raising galas is set for Nov. 3.

She wants to hire a full-time museum educator, someone she could offer a two- or three-year contract, and to open an after-school program with computer training and art and dance classes. She also wants to upgrade the Weeksville Web site and market the houses nationwide as a tourist attraction.

''After everything we've gone through, we don't want to just restore the houses and then have no one come here,'' she said. ''It's not the first part of Brooklyn people think to visit. Weeksville has to be made relevant for the 13-year-old across the street and the person visiting New York from across the country.''

Ms. Green and Ms. Maynard walk the grounds daily imagining the site restored and open to scores of children. ''The dream is so close,'' Ms. Maynard said.

And that's why Ms. Green remains worried. ''If we can't pull it off now with all of the momentum we have, we may not have another 30 years to wait. It's now or never.''

Photos: On Bergen Street in Brooklyn, at right, the Hunterfly Road Historic Houses were part of a community of freed slaves in the 1800's. Below left, the area in 1923. Below right, Pam Green, left, the executive director of the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville, and Joan Maynard, the executive director emeritus. They hope to finish work on the homes. (Photographs by Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times); (New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission)(pg. F1); The Society for the Preservation of Weeksville is leading the effort to restore the Hunterfly houses. Some items are already on display, above. (Photographs by Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)(pg. F2)